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Ham and Egg Sandwiches

A sandwich filled with buttered ham, eggs, butter, pepper, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ham and Egg Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped ham, seasoning with pepper and mustard, and heat through.

  3. Beat the eggs and stir them into the ham mixture until just combined.

  4. Allow to cool slightly, then spread the mixture between slices of buttered bread.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the ham mixture and set into a soft, spreadable filling when heated.
Ham
Supplies the savoury, salty meat flavour that carries the sandwich.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the ham and eggs cook.

The step that matters

Stir the eggs in until just combined. Overbeating or overcooking eggs makes them tough and dry. Stirring gently over gentle heat keeps the filling soft and spreadable.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, pepper, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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